Where are you from?
I was born and raised in Northeastern Massachusetts, just south of the New Hampshire border and then attended a Bible College in upstate New York where I met my wife. She was from Kalamazoo, Michigan which is where we live now!
What is your earliest memory of music?
My earliest memory of music was living in a 2nd floor apartment in Methuen, Massachusetts at four or five years old and coming out to my mom and telling her that I wanted some new music to listen to. She brought me over to a shelf of CD’s we had on the wall of our dining room behind the side of our table and passed me a few CD’s, one of which was DC Talk’s “Free at Last” record. That CD became a regular listen for me. I would play it on my CD player in my room and “break dance” and jump off of my bunk bed, just being a kid and enjoying the music. I would do that for an hour or more on a pretty regular basis to my memory. My windows would fog up because I was getting so hot and sweaty from dancing to my little 5 year old heart’s content. They were good times and just showed how much I loved music even from a young age.
How would you describe your style?
My style is heavily founded in the acoustic singer-songwriter genre with influences from rock, blues, pop and R&B. I pull a lot from John Mayer, NEEDTOBREATHE, Jon Foreman, and Allen Stone. Pretty much any time I hear a song I really enjoy, I instinctively think “I want this inside my music”. Instead of only covering my favorite tunes, I usually want the deeper pleasure of recreating a similar feel inside something that’s mine. So my style breathes and evolves while still keeping a clear foundation lately.
Are there any particular themes or messages that you often explore in your music?
The feel of honesty, authenticity, and vulnerability are common motifs in my songs. My songs are often auto-biographical. So rather having a process of writing a song based off of a “what if?”/story creation, it’s usually coming from something I’m actively feeling or experiencing. My songs are often a way to process whatever is most weighing on my heart. Recently, I’ve noticed the theme of time coming up a lot in my tunes. My song “Nursery Lie” and “Between You and Me,” which are both out on streaming platforms both talk about the passing of time, the difference time makes or the difference it doesn’t make in some situations and as I get closer to my twenties ending, I’m thinking about it more and more and feeling the weight of my own mortality and how short life really is and how quickly it can go by. That theme is showing itself in a song I’m finishing up right now called “27” which will be releasing this spring, it says,
“Three years to thirty and I’m thinking about time. It’s nothing new, ask my friends and they’ll all sigh, saying ‘Oh, that’s Jon, always on. Thinking ’bout some heavy truth. Some heavy truth.’ But ooo I’m waiting on the day, ooo where I’m not waiting on a day”
I’m really proud of this song and can’t wait to share it with everyone.
What is the meaning behind your stage name?
You know it’s funny, I thought about taking a stage name for a bit, something more iconic and bold then just my own given name. I feel like bands get this benefit of taking on a group identity that’s bigger than themselves and come across transcendent in a subliminal kind of way. But I decided to stick with my real name because I feel like the stage moniker phase will pass, but my name will always be my name. So even though it may not seem as iconic in the current setting, I think it will stand the test of time better, perhaps. In addition, names end up taking on an identity of their own over time. Whether it’s John Mayer or NEEDTOBREATHE, their artist identity ends up defining the name they go by over time to where I think less about the words and more about the identity of the words as each act shows us what it means by the music the release and the branding they craft.
What’s the story behind your most famous song?
My most streamed song is “Nursery Lie” and the meaning is that there’s a lie we come to believe at a young age that the next thing in life is always the better thing. I talk about being eight years old and “falling for the nursery lie” (which is a play on words from the term nursery rhyme) that life would be better when I’m older when I can drive. The song goes on to recount what I feel like a lot of us have done with periods of our lives “play it fast, all of my past, ’cause I’ll live it again. It ain’t nothing new, what I’m growing through with all of my friends.” We tend to speed past the things in life that feel mundane and gray in comparison to the things we’re waiting for and hit fast forward until time catches up with us and we want to go back. This is recognized later in the song when I say “but silver hairs start to grow, and I’m only twenty-four, oh my my. There’s things to do, not things to see. Wonder what life will bring to me, same as before. It’s just like before.” I tended to look forward to the next thing, thinking that the next stage would be better or easier, or that life would have more clarity. But, as you get older you realize you’re always viewing life as though at the edge of a precipice. You’re always in the dark about what tomorrow brings no matter how old you are. The chorus is a hopeful and confident reprieve, celebrating that I’ve gotten wiser, stronger and better as a person over the course of all these years. I’ve grown with the passing of time. So much, in fact that I’ve said to my wife multiple times in moments of clarity “I wouldn’t want to go back to who I was.”
What is the hardest thing about being an artist?
I think the hardest part about being an independent artist is how many things you have to stay disciplined in and do well in order to be successful (success meaning, gaining an audience of people who really care about your work, being profitable as a business, and feeling proud of what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.). Building a career for yourself in anything entrepreneurial is not an automated process. You have to learn/decide on a path to walk, and show up and set markers for yourself and keep pushing. A producer named Jake Rye and I just had a call the other day and he was giving me some insight on what to focus on to really start building some momentum and it really all came down to discipline: release a song every 6-8 weeks and just keep doing it. It’s the same thing with social media, shows, any of it: make a rhythm and keep doing it over and over again and don’t stop. With music, you have to keep that up in multiple areas: releasing music, pitching to playlists/press, booking gigs, and keeping regular on socials. It’s a lot to manage especially when you’re working full time to pay the bills and in my case have a family to look after. At first I thought it would get better once I “got big”, but now I’m looking at artists who are a lot bigger than me but are still in their building phase and they still have to keep the same rhythms. I think even signed artists are being told to get into the same rhythms. The record label isn’t going to pay for a smaller artist to have their own social media person necessarily, so they have to either hire it out themselves or just do it like an indie artist. I think the juggling and having to sustain that juggling for a long time to find success is the hard thing. But I’ve learned it can be easier, you just have to make a schedule, stick to it and have good boundaries to make sure music doesn’t consume everything.
What’s the best thing about being an artist?
The best part about being an artist is the pay off you get from the music you make and the support you receive from friends, family and fans. The most exhilarating time for a song is when I first build out the initial arrangement in a recording session, this thing that I’ve only had in my head or in pieces across multiple voice recordings on my phone, finally comes together and you get to hear what you’ve been using your brain to hear for the past however many months right there in your ears, you get to enjoy it instead of trying to imagine it to enjoy it. It’s the most excited I get on a song, except maybe when the mix gets finalized and the song is hitting the way I want it to. As far as the support, there was a show I got to play right after leaving the church job I was at for a couple of years that was a pretty painful exit, and people from almost every chapter of my life ended up being represented in the audience. I had two high school class mates who ended up moving from Massachusetts to just an hour north of me in Michigan who came to my show in Grand Rapids, friends from my and my wife’s church in Kalamazoo, friends from the Grand Rapids music scene and friends from my and my wife’s New York Bible College who were living in Grand Rapids all come that night. I sat back marveling at “Man, what are the chances? What a blessing.” And then that week friends were saying yes over and over again to preordering my album to fund it’s release. That was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had in music so far. I felt so loved and so privileged.
What are your goals for your music career?
I want to share the stage with the artists who’ve impacted me, make a living and support my family, have freedom and resources to make the songs that I want to make, and have people care about and support what I’m doing.
What do you like to do in your free time (outside of music)?
Spend time with my wife, watching movies haha! We’ve got four kids five and under, so the days are long and busy. So when we reach the end of day filled with work and looking after the kids, all we want is to spend time with each other and be a lump on the couch haha! I don’t do it often, but my wife and I would love to hike more, we’ve enjoyed it when we’ve done it. I like warm summer drives, going for a swim, playing video games for a bit, talking with friends, going out for coffee or just sitting in the living room or porch on a nice day and enjoying the peace.
Do you get involved with charities or causes that are important to you?
Not right now, no. The biggest thing that I’ve tried to drive home with my music and what I share about it is just honesty, not putting up a ruse so that healing can happen. Early on that looked like me sharing my healing from childhood sexual abuse and encouraging people to trust that God can heal situations even as broken as that, but I haven’t had any official partnerships with organizations or anything like that.
What is something that people would be surprised to know about you?
Probably what I mentioned earlier, that my wife and I have four kids five and younger and we’re only twenty-seven. That’s usually a jaw dropper at shows haha.
What does a typical day look like for you?
A typical day looks like waking up at 5:15/5:20 to be to work at 6:00 AM, working until 2:00 PM, coming home and taking care of my kids until my wife gets home on the days that she works, one of us making dinner, putting them to bed (and probably taking way too long to do that haha), watching something together and going to bed around 10:00 PM. I often gig on the weekends, so sometime’s I’m coming home from work on a Friday, saying hi to my family, getting my gear together and hitting the road to get to the gig.
Do you have any upcoming projects we can be excited about?
My song “27”, mentioned earlier, is aimed to release in March so keep an eye out for that! I have a lot more singles coming out throughout this year and a live record that will likely release to youtube at the end of the year. That will be a live performance of my entire first album “Between You and Me,” at the starlight room in Muskegon, MI November 9th, 2024 as a part of their Vinyl series. Tickets for that show/live album recording will go on sale this month!
What are some of the standout tracks on your latest project?
“Nursery Lie” is the one everyone always loves, so definitely give that a listen, “Awhile” is one of my favorites because of its purity and simplicity in its arrangement/recording methods and also the message of it “let the soil rest for awhile, oh my mouth drop off your crooked smile”, once again driving home that “let the facade fall and really be honest” message, and “Open Wound”/”Pt. 2” is the most dynamic/cinematic journey of a song on the whole record. Each of the songs on this record really help to make a journey and a refreshing palette change as the record proceeds, so please, listen start to finish! I think you’ll enjoy the intentionality in the track listing.
What are your favorite topics to write about?
I really enjoy writing about things that resonate deeply within me and connect with other through this soft spoken, courageous honesty: pain, loss, insecurity, the feeling of new life, simplicity, all of these things really.
How do you deal with creative block or artist block?
I usually get super anxious about it haha. But then I think I just accept that nothing’s flowing right now and let it come back around. Even though I’m busy, it’s actually a blessing because I usually have a stack of songs I haven’t demo’d yet. So even when I’m not writing, I have plenty to arrange/finish writing which helps me not feel like I’m in a dry spell as much.
What is the best advice anyone has ever given you?
In music, the best advice has been to just stay consistent like I mentioned earlier. We’re in a fortunate time where algorithms actually make certain parts of the world work the way the Bible describes in Proverbs of a “sow and reap” flow. If you’re good, and you’re consistent I don’t see how you wouldn’t grow with how socials, and spotify work right now, unless God is just deciding it’s not time right now.
What is the best show or tour you’ve been on?
The best show I’ve had was actually the one I mentioned earlier. I’ve made more money than I did that night at other shows, but the feeling of having so many people I’ve known from multiple chapters of life all in one room, all telling me they enjoy what I’m doing and to keep going, that took the cake so far.
What’s been your favorite moment in your career so far? Where can people find your music online?
Not to sound like a broken record, but that show I keep mentioning, nothing has topped that: no stream count, no follower amount, no money I’ve made. That night filled my heart up to the point of tears after a truly hear-breaking season. A second is probably 2023 overall where I got to finally get started releasing more music, playing more shows, and really moving into being a part time, professional musician. That was a little dream come true and I’m thankful for the support and momentum it’s given me. You can find my music on Spotify and all streaming platforms. If not, just go to www.jonhayesofficial.com for links to music and socials. Thank you so much!
